singing with all my skin and bone
by Gray Doll
Summary: She decides to stop counting how many times they've slept, or tried to sleep, in the car. - Sansa/Sandor, modern AU


**a.n./** I wanted to keep the background of this one open to interpretation – you can imagine absolutely whatever you want about what led them to just run away together. I do think it's more fun that way, at least for me.

* * *

**singing with all my skin and bone**

**;-;**

(Sandor ruins Sansa, ruins himself. Sansa tries to pick up the pieces, tries to fix him.

Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe. She thinks they'll never truly know.)

**-;**

At some point, they start sleeping in the car.

**-;**

It's November and the weather's almost too chilling, almost too fitting. The wind beats against the car, tries to sway it, but Sandor's grip on the steering wheel never falters – his gaze straight ahead. It's like some fight between him and nature, push and pull, but he always seems to win, _always_.

The windows are cracked open slightly, air sweeping into the car, settling on the leather seats, making her skin crawl. She's sitting in the passenger's seat, legs brought up; outside, the lines of trees shine with stolen light. Her head falls against the window and if he swayed now, moved the steering wheel to the left just a little, she knows her head would bang against the glass, and she knows it's so very possible – but he doesn't falter, and she trusts that. Not him, she thinks now, just that.

She sleeps. But it's the kind of sleep where she can still hear the tires against the road, the rattling of change in the console. She can still hear everything going on around her and she can feel the cold stinging in her ears, rustling her hair – she is aware, and almost awake, because there's this feeling in her gut that if she falls asleep, completely and in dreams, she'll miss something big, or maybe she won't wake up ever again.

Eyes closed, her half-sleep is restless; it's legs shaking with the car because the road needs to be paved, the smell of wheat and old country. It's tiring and stiff and wrapped in a cold gray cloak and it's all she's getting and all she'll ever get from now on. But she knows it's still better than whatever her family got. _Her family_. Her breath catches, catches and stops, and she has to remind herself to stay calm.

Her family.

She shifts, opens her eyes, and stares straight ahead out into the fading darkness. Sandor doesn't say anything, doesn't seem to have noticed she's awake, but she knows he knows – somehow, he always does. Her eyes flitter to him; his hands tight around the steering wheel, eyes hard and almost unblinking, features set into sharp burnt lines, never changing.

"Want me to drive?" she asks loud enough to catch his attention. She's sitting on her hands, trying to smother the bitter cold seeping into them, and he gives her a side glance. Blink and you'll miss it – his lips twist a little, almost into a small smile, but it's gone as soon as she thinks she saw it and his eyes are back on the road.

His voice is, as always, harsh. Almost guttural. "No, I'm fine."

She eyes him warily; sees the haziness in his eyes, his fingers gripping the wheel _too_ tight, and there's something falling inside her the moment she realizes she's seeing all this with concern. There's a part of her, in the form of a voice, that tells her, because you are who you are, you want to help. She shushes it: tells herself it's just that she doesn't want to get killed because he suddenly falls asleep in his seat. She shakes her head, says, "I'll drive." She places her right hand on his arm gently, the other hand on the buckle of her seat belt. Her voice is soft as if she doesn't want to scare him, distract him from the road. For some reason, she thinks she needs to approach him with more caution than usual. "You've been at it all night. We must have been through, what, four states?" She just wants to lighten the mood because it's always too cold and dark and musty, so she adds a little laugh and waits for his lips to quirk up, or something-

He casts her another glance, eyes hard. "We're still in Nevada," he says and she remembers that's where they were before she fell asleep at nightfall.

She sits back in her seat, feeling only a couple of inches tall, and there's pink in her cheeks, "Oh. Okay." She smiles courtly and watches her hands sitting in her lap. His gaze is back on the road and it's never ending yellow lines and brisk cold weather. She says, though, a few moments later, "I could still drive though," in a small voice.

When he turns to her she has this look on her face that's too hard to deny – or maybe sleep's too hard to deny – either way, he sighs and pulls over off the road. Her lips stretch into a grin and he thinks she looks like she's five and just won the best stuffed animal at the fair and the expression on her face, that he will later swear he didn't notice, is too innocent.

He tosses the keys to her. "_Don't_ screw this up, little bird."

She rolls her eyes a little but then she remembers herself; gets out of the car, quietly and without much fuss, walks around until she's standing outside his door and waiting for him to get out. She almost smiles when he shakes his head. "It's not like I've never driven before," she says, and there's a lilt to her voice that surprises even herself.

He's gotten out and almost to the passenger's side when he turns around, eyes her almost suspiciously, "Have you, though? Driven a car before?"

She sighs a little, and feels her cheeks heat. "Yes, I have." It's absolutely foolish, she thinks, because she's eighteen and he's been around her long enough; of course she's driven before.

**-;**

She's in the driver's seat, the leather still warm from him sitting there, her feet reaching the pedals just right. She adjusts the rearview mirror, buckles her seat belt, and fumbles with the radio, searching for something that will keep her awake for the rest of the day.

"If I have to listen to anything top 40, I will personally drug you and keep you in the trunk until we reach wherever the fuck it is we're going to," he says as he slumps down in the passenger's seat, his shoulders touching the glass where her head had rested before. His voice is monotonous and gruff and serious and god, she's heard his threats before but this one sounds like he just doesn't mean it.

But she finds a station that plays old, _old_ rock that she can barely stand, but it'll work because he's not grunting about his ears bleeding or anything, so there's one thing she doesn't have to worry about. And with the map open on the console in front of her, getting lost is another.

**-;**

Sandor wakes up to Sansa's voice loud and distant. He opens his eyes slowly, raises up from his slumped position on the seat and runs a hand over his face. He looks to his left and of course she's not there. He blinks, shifts, looks around and notices they're at a gas station in the middle of nowhere; takes a moment to adjust to the close quarters he fell asleep in and the pain suddenly shooting up his spine, and realizes that she's not shouting at someone, but screaming.

He gets out, doesn't bother with the dust covering his car, and follows her voice. The rocks and dirt crunch beneath his feet and he realizes that he's running, impossibly hot air sticking his hair to his forehead. Before he can comprehend he's pushing open the door, the bell chiming softly as he crashes inside.

The first thing he sees is red. Her hair, long and the color of fire, is falling in front of her face, and her cheeks are flushed, her eyes open wide. She's pushed up against the wall, her blue skirt hiked up around her waist, and only then does he notice the gas attendant, big, dark haired and holding her pinned between his arms, his face at her neck.

"Sandor," she breathes, her eyes locking with his, large and blue and glistening, and in an instant he's pulling the man backwards, shoving him to the floor, a hundred different curses that she will later pretend she never heard leaving his mouth.

"God, please," the man cries, doubles over and groans in pain when Sandor kicks him in the stomach. "I didn't know she was-" another kick, and the man grunts, coughs, tries to cover his face; Sandor feels his head burning, a hatred and disgust too white hot for his body to contain, his vision hazy and his hands clenched into fists, nails biting into skin.

"Wait," Sansa's shouting, and her voice is hoarse, "Sandor, you're going to kill him-"

But he's already pressing his foot down on the man's back, grabbing the back of his head and slamming his face down against the grimy floor. He sees blood, hears the man's muffled scream and his own heavy breathing and Sansa's cry, sees more blood. There's a hand on his forearm – small and white and pressing into him with all its might, and he realizes it's the little bird trying to pull him off the man, trying to restrain him.

"Sandor," she's saying, yelling, and he gives another kick, steps back and almost stumbles, his breaths coming fast and heavy. The man rolls on his back with a pained moan, his face covered in blood; Sandor can see he broke the man's nose, and there's a tooth dipped in the pool of blood on the floor.

"God," the man groans again, hands clutching his sides, head thrown back. "I didn't know–"

"Sandor, _please_," the little bird says, voice urgent, desperate, her small hands clutching his arm, red hair falling like a curtain around her. "Let's get out of here. Leave him. _Please_."

He swallows, tries to calm his breathing. When he bends down, clenches his fists into the gas attendant's shirt and pulls him up, he feels the man tremble, his bloodied mouth open on a silent scream. "You ever tell anyone about this," Sandor says, voice low, "you ever try anything like this again, and I'll come back for you, and I'll fucking kill you."

The man nods, a slight, broken thing, and Sandor shoves him back down to the floor, hears the muffled thud and the groan that follows.

When they walk back to the car, the sky painted with hues of purple and blue, she's shaking, and he's looking straight ahead. "Are you okay, little bird?" he asks and she nods her head, pulls her cardigan tighter around her body, but he doesn't see it.

They don't speak for hours after that. Sandor drives in silence, chances sideways glances to where she's sitting curled up in the passenger's seat, head resting on the window, and he thinks little girls shouldn't be used to such things. He doesn't voice it, though. He merely grips the wheel tighter, and gazes out at the empty road.

**-;**

They continue their silence at the diner. It's a small, dingy place; she eats her pancakes and he drinks his coffee and the waitress is nice, doesn't stare at Sandor's scars and smiles at them like they're cute. Sansa keeps her eyes down on her plate and chews quickly.

The sun is high in the sky when they get back on the road. Sandor's driving again and doesn't say anything about the place Sansa circled on the map that they should go next.

He thinks anywhere is better than where they've been.

**-;**

It starts one night that Sansa hasn't had any sleep and the winding road has worn Sandor down. There's no motel around and she can smell the rain in the air, she can feel it in her bones.

So they sleep in the car.

Sandor gives Sansa the whole backseat and she wonders if that says anything about his character because she almost expected him to actually toss her in the trunk. He stays in the front, feet stretched as far as they can go and she resists the urge to giggle at sight of such a large person trying to fit into such a small place.

It's uncomfortable and too cold and when he can almost hear Sansa shivering in the backseat, he almost takes off his jacket and gives it to her. But he looks up at the rearview mirror, sees her changing sides so that she has her back turned to him, and thinks she doesn't even want to be aware of his existence now, so-

He pulls the jacket closer around him and tucks his chin into it.

(Sansa doesn't really sleep, just stares out the window and does things she thinks are childish, like count the stars.)

**-;**

It happens more often, after that. Sansa decides to stop counting how many times they've slept, or tried to sleep, in the car.

One day Sandor wakes up and the morning is bright and hot, the air filled with endless annoying chirps, and Sansa's not in the backseat. He doesn't really worry, there's nothing around but fields and fields and fields that go on for miles, but he thinks he should at least know where she's run off to this time.

He gets out, sun burning his eyes. "Little bird," he yells, hand formed around his mouth to allow his voice to carry through the air, and he realizes that he has never once called her by her name. He doesn't hear anything in reply, but he doesn't have to because he suddenly sees her red hair shining in the sun and he starts walking towards her, his steps long and his feet heavy against the ground.

She's sitting in the grass, a long way from where they parked the car last night off the road. She's wearing a sundress, even though it's still early March and the air is too cold for that, and he tries not to be distracted by the endless expanse of her legs and the way the light yellow fabric falls like silk over her thighs – he fails.

"I guess this is going to be routine for us," he says, voice still thick with fatigue. He walks until he's standing right beside her. She looks up at him and he's towering over her, _like always, too big too intimidating too everything she's not_.

"And what would that be?" she asks, still quiet and gentle and timid after everything, squinting her big blue eyes a little.

"You're almost always gone when I wake up." He plumps down beside her unceremoniously. "I always thought it was going to be the other way around with us, little bird."

She laughs a little, he can see her entire face blushing, a red that he could only describe as pretty if he tried. He thinks of how fucking lame he would sound if he ever said that, and decides there is no reason to describe her blushing at all.

But he finds he can't resist doing that, say things to her just to see her cheeks flush, her eyelashes quiver, the corners of her mouth tremble to fight a smile and finally settling into a nervous pout. He knows, with aching certainty, that Sansa Stark will always be a fucking lady. He doesn't know if he loves or hates that about her – he thinks maybe both, and then doesn't think of it at all.

"God, you're so crass," she mumbles, just to say something, and it's his turn to laugh, loud and deafening.

**-;**

Her own laugh is like song, sweet and annoying and all the different kinds of beautiful there are at the same time. He mercilessly taunts her about it and she keeps laughing, and suddenly it feels too normal – like they're not on the run from a past filled with blood and tears and slaughter, from the tragedy that always seems to lurk just around the corner, like they don't sleep in a car with chills to their bones because they have nowhere to sleep, nowhere to call home.

It suddenly feels too normal, and it's unsettling. Sansa notices it before him, her laughter stops short and she's clearing her throat, standing up and brushing grass off her dress, walking back to the car without a word.

Sandor watches her open the passenger's door, and takes a deep breath, feels his scars burn under the onslaught of sunlight. Because he knows, just like the little bird does, normalcy is just a page out of a book they'll never get their hands on. So why act like they know when they have no idea at all?

**-;**

By the time they make it to Salem, Sansa has stopped counting the number of rundown diners they've been to. She's certain it's been no less than fifty – always the same order of pancakes with extra honey for her and black coffee for him.

She's sick of it. And she's tired of it. And she dreams of sleeping somewhere other than the backseat of a car. And she dreams of taking a long shower, using all the hot water and all the scented soaps and scrubbing her skin raw to get the stench of the road off her.

She asks him to get a room. A nice one with room service and clean sheets and a lobby full of information about tourist attractions, and to actually go to some of these attractions.

Okay, fine, whatever, just be quiet, he tells her.

**-;**

"Salem has a lot to offer," the tour guide says, smile broad and plastered on like a sticker.

"Why the fuck do we need a tour guide?" Sandor mutters and Sansa quietly chastises him for his language, tells him _please, be silent_, while Adam, the guide, who has curly blond hair and green eyes, is speaking. She puts her arm around his and tries to drag him forward when their group begins moving.

While the little bird oohs and aahs at everything, eyes wide and bright, Sandor pretends he isn't noticing everyone, including the guide, giving him sideways looks every now and then, eyes filled with things he is determined to forget Sansa herself once felt about him.

It feels like months have passed when they make it back to their hotel. The receptionist raises her eyes when they walk past, gaze following the little bird with concern, as though she's thinking he might hurt Sansa, as though he might ever-

He takes a deep breath, rids himself of the urge to turn around and throw something at the cow's face. When they're finally in the two-bed room, Sansa declares she's going to take a bath. "Don't use up all the hot water, _again_," he grunts, and she laughs, and he spends the next hour lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and trying his damnedest not to imagine her naked in the bathtub.

**-;**

This is how it happens:

"Tell me I look nice," she says softly, almost pleadingly, stepping in front of him, doing a little twirl in her gossamer blue dress, bright auburn hair down in curls around her bright, bright face.

He blinks. "You look fucking beautiful," he says before he can stop himself, and she blushes, always blushes, averting her gaze and he's left watching her eyelashes brush ever so slightly against the rise of her cheekbones.

"Thank you," she murmurs, and for a moment she seems at struggle with herself. Then she sucks in a deep breath, steps forward in her high heels that he has no idea how she can walk on, and places her hand out for him. "Shall we?" she asks, a smile in her voice, and she's looking down at him with something that makes his world lurch, makes his stomach coil and clench.

He swallows, grabs her hand and leads her out of the room.

They have dinner at a very nice restaurant with a waitstaff who has impeccable manners, who smile politely at Sansa and Sandor alike, who suggest only the best selection of wines. Sansa tips her wineglass toward him a little, smiles at him in a way that bottles up everything she is and gives it to him in the slightest, smallest manner. Sandor knows, by whatever God the little bird believes in, he knows he could just take it and run with it. Or, he could look at her in the way that says no, you don't want this, you don't want any of this, shake his head and dismiss the moment.

This is what he does.

**-;**

When they stumble into the lobby of the hotel, Sansa has drunk too much wine, grabs his hand impatiently, pulls him into the elevator, and when the doors close she's already flush against him.

He wants her; he knows this better than anything he has known in his entire life, knows this as surely as he knows that the sky is blue and her eyes are blue and her smile is the most fucking beautiful thing in the entire world. He brushes the hair out of her face in a manner that is too tender, too soft, that should feel wrong in his hands that are stained with scars and blood and death and horror, but doesn't.

Sansa looks up at him with glistening eyes that have too much written in them. Sandor exhales slowly, and the aching in his throat feels like swallowing glass. He looks away suddenly, removes her hands from his chest.

"No," the little bird says in a way that means she may want this, she may _need_ this. "Let me do this," she murmurs. The sentiment is,_ let me fix you_. (Let me fix us.)

And the smile she gives him, small and wobbly and sweet, says: here, everything's here, take it, do something with it. He kisses her before he can stop himself. He forgets about his scars until it's nothing but a dull thing of the past and he had never known that he could kiss slowly, that he would kiss gently, that he would kiss _Sansa_. He tries to say it to her through their kiss, tries to tell her that she may have to take it all back one day, she may-

Sansa kisses him back fervently with suddenly confident hands running up his arms and curling around his neck. She has her eyes closed, she whispers into his mouth, okay, _it's okay_.

**-;**

They're on the road again and Sansa's not driving. She's sitting in the passenger's seat as usual, rolled down window and air whipping her hair like a blaze about her face. There's an open potato chips bag on her lap that she hasn't touched, and she's looking outside, thinking about Sandor like she probably shouldn't, thinking about Sandor like she probably always does.

The road is long in front of them, stretching on and on forever, the yellow lines are fading but Sandor's grip on the steering wheel never falters, _he_ never falters. But Sansa is suddenly afraid; she thinks she'll be the one who will falter, who will slip and fall into nothingness.

The air is suddenly too hot, too filled with things Sansa doesn't want to make sense off, and she rolls up the window, shifts in her seat so that her eyes are on Sandor's profile, on his hands around the steering wheel, on his eyes, bright and sharp and unwavering.

She lets her head fall against the window, closes her eyes to sleep, and trusts him to never falter.

**-;**

At some point, they start sleeping in the car again.

**-;**

(Sandor ruins Sansa, ruins himself. Sansa tries to pick up the pieces, tries to fix him.

Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe. He thinks they'll never truly know.)


End file.
